The Thomas C Chalmers Award

Thomas C Chalmers, MD

Tom Chalmers (1917-1995) was an outspoken advocate of randomised trials, whether at the bedside, at professional meetings, in class or in situations pertaining to his own life. His creativity spanned his entire career, influencing clinicians and methodologists alike. He is perhaps best known for the notion ‘randomise the first patient’, his belief that it is more ethical to randomise patients than to treat them in the absence of good evidence. In his later years, in arguably his most important work, Tom and his colleagues showed that, had information from RCTs been systematically and cumulatively synthesised, important treatments such as thrombolytic therapy for myocardial infarction would have been recognised as useful much earlier.

The Thomas C Chalmers Award

The Thomas C Chalmers Award was established with individual donations to celebrate and recognise Tom's interests, and was awarded for the first time at the 2nd Cochrane Colloquium in Hamilton, Canada in 1994. The Award is given at each Cochrane Colloquium (and this year at the Global Evidence Summit) to the principal author of both the best oral and the best poster presentation addressing methodological issues related to systematic reviews given by an early career investigator. The presentations must demonstrate originality of thought, high quality science, relevance to the advancement of the science of systematic reviews and clarity of presentation.

Presentations are judged by the Thomas C Chalmers Award Committee during the course of the Global Evidence Summit. The two recipients each receive a certificate and US$500.

Eligibility criteria

To be considered eligible, the first author must be an early career investigator and the presenter at the event. An early career investigator is considered to be one who is (i) no more than 7 years after their last education or professional qualification (e.g. bachelor, diploma, masters, doctorate, etc.); and (ii) not having held an academic (or equivalent research-orientated) appointment for longer than 7 years in total. Career interruptions or delays for the purpose of childrearing, illness, health-related family responsibilities or non-research clinical training (residency, etc.) do not count towards these 7 years.

Assessment criteria

Eligible oral and poster presentations must demonstrate:

a) originality of thoughtb) high quality sciencec) relevance for the advancement of the science of systematic reviewsd) clarity of presentation

Thomas C Chalmers Award recipients

2017

The 2017 best long oral presentation winner is Emily Karahalios, for 'An empirical investigation of the impact of different methods for synthesizing evidence in a network meta-analysis'.

The 2017 best short oral presentation winner is Hannah Ewald, for 'Agreement of treatment effects from observational studies using causal modeling and randomized trials: meta-epidemiological study'.

2016

The 2016 best oral presentation winner is Daniël Korevaar, for 'Time to publication among completed diagnostic accuracy studies: associated with reported accuracy estimates'. Proceedings of the 24th Cochrane Colloquium, 2016

The 2016 best poster presentation is Juan Victor Ariel Franco for 'Error identification in search strategies of new Cochrane Systematic Reviews published in 2015'. Proceedings of the 24th Cochrane Colloquium, 2016

2006

Alldred SK. Comparison of two different search strategies in identifying literature for a diagnostic test accuracy review of Down's Syndrome screening. Proceedings of the 14th Cochrane Colloquium, 2006.

and

Skipka G. The inclusion of the estimated inter-study variation into forest plots for random-effects meta-analyses - a suggestion for a graphical presentation. Proceedings of the 14th Cochrane Colloquium, 2006.

Salanti G, Higgins J, Marinho V. How to determine the best treatment: a mixed-treatment-comparisons meta-analysis (MTM) of trials of topical fluoride therapies for the prevention of dental caries [presentation]. Proceedings of the 13th Cochrane Colloquium, 2005.

*To enlarge the poster, right-click on the poster image; select 'Zoom' from the pop-up menu, then 'In' from the choices that appear.

2003

2002

Royle P. Obtaining published errata to randomised controlled trials: is it worth the effort? Proceedings of the 10th Cochrane Colloquium, 2002.

Runner-up:

Napoli M, Schiff H. Survey of American media coverage of the review of mammography trials: an opportunity to educate consumers about the risks of detecting ductal carcinoma in situ. Proceedings of the 10th Cochrane Colloquium, 2002.